


Past Me

by ValidAsshole



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abusive Parents, Ghosts, Suicide, and i like hurting my favorite character too much lol, do not read if you will be triggered by anything in it please, implied grooming and pedophilia, implied rape, no editing we die like fools, not actually shown, suicide ideation, this was very much a vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22591282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValidAsshole/pseuds/ValidAsshole
Summary: Shisui has always dealt with everything alone, he's never needed outside help. Hecouldhandle it all on his own, or die trying. He finds himself proven correct when certain things come to light and it becomes more and more apparent how truly alone he is. (How much nobody cares).
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Past Me

A plane flies overhead.

No one looks up.

He’s made it here, deep into the forest with only his backpack filled with essentials- essential for his purposes here, at least.

Shisui watches an ant crawling away with its own piece of gold and pretends he doesn’t see the water droplets blocking its path. The ant moves around it, determined to see itself to its destination, and he looks away.

He looks towards the empty clearing and almost forgets why he’s here.

Might as well enjoy the weather while he still has time. It is such a nice day today. Sunny, with no clouds in sight, and a nice breeze to offset the heat.

His stomach grumbles a little at the lack of sustenance, but he can’t find himself caring. He hasn’t eaten well, nor regularly for a long time now.

No one would be looking for him today, and he just wants to enjoy the wind blowing through his hair and the animals going about their daily struggle.

_“Shisui, what are you doing?” the question is delivered too calmly._

_He’s curled up in the corner of a room, huddled up._

_What is he doing, indeed?_

_Hiding, he’s hiding._

_“...Shisui?”_

_“I’m sorry, Itachi. I’m so sorry.”_

_“What happened? What’s going on? Shisui- Shisui, answer me.” his voice gets more desperate the more he doesn’t get a response._

_He lowers his head and urges time to go faster._

The clouds going by are beautiful. He wants to go up there himself, to see what it all looks like from above. To see how tiny and inconsequential it all really is. To let the wind rip at him as he falls back down, to feel his bones crack and break at the crash.

He’s never been on a plane before, and it’s too late to try so now. One day, he’d always said one day...

He wants to ride through clouds and shine with the sun while he can, to feel the chill on his skin and his ears closing up as he flies above even the ladybugs. He wants to feel everything.

It’s been so long since he’s felt much of anything other than hurt. His fingers feel numb, his heart even more so- head floating outside of his body and ears listening to another plane.

Mood swings, his mother had said. Depersonalization, the doctor had said. Shisui, they had asked.

What was he supposed to do? He told them his truth, most of them.

In the end, nothing happened.

He knows a little bit of _their_ truth now too.

It’s not that he was supposed to hide it, it’s not that he was ever at fault, it wasn’t because of the rules and societal restrictions that his words were never trusted, always pushed down.

It was just that it didn’t matter. No one had ever truly cared about him, had they?

_The truth, they all wanted the truth._

_The truth of why he’s hurting, the truth of why he hasn’t been able to control himself as well as he usually does._

_Caught in the middle of a panic attack and suddenly they are all so worried._

_Had he been that good at hiding it? Or is it just that no one wants to look close enough?_

_Not until, not until it’s shoved in their faces. Then it’s all gossip, then it’s all condolences and offers to listen with pitying looks and vague curiosity in sparkling eyes._

_He’d felt safe this week, despite everything._

_Sensei was out of town and that should’ve meant that he was free for a little bit._

_But then there had been the note and his music playing through his earbuds and their fish watching from the aquarium and all he could think about was how big this room was, how trapped he was. Dead fish eyes and closed windows and low light, everything tightened around him._

_How had he allowed Itachi to find him, he wonders. It was a mistake, a big mistake, they both should’ve been gone by then._

_Itachi always worried too much, Itachi always told the wrong people._

_But were there any right people to tell anyways?_

_When even his own flesh and blood, his mother…_

Itachi is kind, always too, too kind.

He tries to understand everything even when he has trouble processing it.

Shisui wondered what kind of person Itachi would become when he finally grew into himself.

He’s almost sad he won’t get to see it.

He hopes Itachi will be able to make up with his mother after this.

It would be better, if everything worked out. If everyone would just get along.

It was frustrating, listening to them fight the past few weeks every day like clockwork, when before they barely spoke past greetings.

When before, he’d been able to distract them with a smile and they’d believe him.

Like before, when Itachi didn’t care too much and his mother didn’t care too little, and everything twisted around him. Itachi kept quiet at school and sent him worried looks and despite his angry words- always, always listening. Always trying to understand.

It was all beyond help at this point, he thinks.

_“How could you accuse him of such a thing?”_

_“It’s ok, Shisui. Come here.” She hugs him, it almost feels nice, if he didn’t know better. If he didn’t know the doctor had told her he was delusional, that his hallucinations(auditory, almost always auditory) could account for his belief that-_

Sticks crush underneath as a bunny hops up to him, looks up at him with bright red eyes. He wonders how it’s survived with its winter coat out so soon, when winter had just barely begun.

The trees had lost their color along with their leaves, but the first snowfall had yet to fall. It is still alive for now though, and he hopes it’s luck continues onwards. The bunny nuzzles into his hand and he can’t stop the tear that leaves him.

It’s so soft, and curious. when it doesn’t back away in fear, he pulls it closer, up towards his face. And then it boops his nose with a little paws and he nearly falls over from joy.

_Hands on him, perched on a lap and looking up at the smiling face above him, eyes crinkled with laugh-lines._

_He squirms a little, not to try and get away- he would never run when Sensei was trying to help him- but to get into a more comfortable position._

_Sometimes, Sensei liked him to sit still, be good, stay quiet and obedient for a little bit. Pet him almost absently, and he adored those moments, where Sensei did nothing more than show his love._

Maybe if it had been pain he’d seen in his eyes; hurt or betrayal, maybe then he could’ve handled it. Instead, all he’d seen was acceptance, and maybe that’s what scared him the most.

Itachi scared him a little bit in that way. Like he understood. God, he hoped he didn’t. The loyalty and the love and the need to be better. The pain and the fear and the hate and the want to disappear, to be perfect.

_He was your Grandfather’s best friend._

_An accident took such a young life away. It was a tragedy._

_He never did quite get over that death, and he repays his allegiance by protecting what Kagami could not._

_What a kind old man, if only more elders were logical like that instead of greedy and stuck in their ways._

_Shisui, you’re like the son I never had._

_We’re family, you do know what that means right? We’re going to be there for each other and we’re going to love each other forever._

_Danzo, he lives for the dead._

_Family; family._

_Then why, why does it hurt?_

He gets out the hunting knife. The animals wither in his sight, and disappear into the undergrowth. A bird call sounds from up above. The bunny does not leave, only stares. He sets it away, off his lap, and wonders how it continues to live with such bad instinct. Or maybe not bad at all, seeing as he had no intention of killing it.

He’s a bit high he thinks, knowing that this peaceful forest is the last thing he will experience. That the last person to hurt him will be himself. That no one will come looking. That in this, he is himself, and that in this, he has control.

The pills in his hands are numerous he knows, he takes them all with only a faint shiver in his hand. And then sets about carving a space in himself for his soul to leave.

Carving a place for it all to end. Danzo will be so angry he wasn’t here for this, that he hadn’t had a hand in how Shisui dies, the thought makes him giggle. Danzo who controls everything about him, will have nothing in this, in how he dies, and will not even be the first to learn he is dead.

He’s…. Happy. Vultures start circling and all he sees is the pretty way red pools against the ground. It’s finally over and over so, so beautifully too, exactly where he wants to be. No eyes on him, yet not quite alone with nature pressing in around him. But no Itachi, no mother, no Danzo, no peers, no authorities. He’s free, for the first time.

The soft fur pressing against his bloody hands is the last thing on his mind before it finally quiets. Freedom is quite gentle, isn’t it?

_He was beloved by everyone, by his peers and his teachers, from the people he volunteered for to the higher ups he’s managed to meet._

_Shisui, Shisui._

_Blow us a kiss, please?_

_Shisui, Shisui._

_He’s beloved, he’s smart, he’s going places._

_Shisui, Shisui._

_He’s always happy, don’t you look up to it?_

_He always has a plan or maybe even four._

_Did you see how he got us an extension on that last project like it was nothing? Danzo-sensei never-_

_Shisui, Shisui._

_We all do very much love you._

_Shisui, Shisui._

_You really should stop asking what love is._

_Oh, Shisui._

_You really should stop forgetting,_

_You’re mine._

When he wakes up, all he can think is _no_ , he isn’t supposed to be awake, not now, not ever. He was supposed to be at rest, sleeping peacefully, not having to think of anything.

But then he’s still in the forest, but then there is no one around him. But then, nothing makes sense.

It smells _rancid._ His body is where he left it, bloody and pale and unbreathing, and he’s- he’s being poked at and eaten by forest animals, just a bit, already- attracted by the scent of blood. Returning to the place from whence he came. He doesn’t know how much time has passed.

He presses a hand to himself, not knowing what to expect, not at all. He's cold. His eyes look lifeless and unaware (They look exactly the same to when he was alive. He almost can't tell the difference).

There’s no bunny next to him. Ah, was that his mind playing tricks on him, too? It would be fitting, he thinks. No matter what, he can believe that he was not alone in death. A bit of gentleness, a bit of companionship in the end… even if it was just his imagination, he’d hope the world had given him at least that.

But then there’s a hand on his shoulder, as eery and out of place as the one of his body. Almost _not quite there_ , just like him.

He turns around to see a man with pure white hair, and red eyes and red markings flowing over his skin.

Ah.

“Shisui.” the man says.

He blinks at that, in curiosity - how did this apparition know his name, but he doesn’t care enough to ask. He did care enough, however, to ask, no smile on his face and no fake cheer in his voice-

(In death he is free, and he will not turn his back on himself.)

“And you are?”

The man hums. He’s tall, and his shoulders are broad, and he almost towers over Shisui’s form, sitting in a pool of blood as he is. The bunny, the man- with soft, warm gentleness that he exudes even now- leans down and holds out a hand.

“Tobirama,” he says, “Senju Tobirama.”

Shisui stares at him, feeling a bit like he should _know_ who this is. He doesn’t though, and there is little reason to dwell on this feeling.

“Why are you here?” He asks instead. _Why am I here? He wants to scream._

“To make amends. And to bring you with me.” Here to make amends? Amends to who? Certainly not for him, seeing as he’d never met the man before and seeing that he kept him company in his last moments. Here for him? He cannot understand why. A… shinigami, maybe? He’d always imagined one of those to feel… darker. (He wonders if the man before him is a lie his brain made up too, he does not dwell on it.)

Tobirama’s hand starts to drop awkwardly, seeing Shisui’s hesitation and goes to explain himself further maybe. Shisui’s head hurts, and he _really_ doesn’t want to deal with more hurt, so he takes the hand before it can fully drop, using it to stand up. It’s warm. And solid. More than it should be. He doesn’t feel quite as solid himself, right now.

He stands and holds the guiding hand and does not ask for an explanation, does not ask where Tobirama will take him. He’s ok with it as long as it’s away.

Tobirama takes his hint, does not speak. He expects to be lead off now. He doesn’t expect the other pale hand to come up and run through his hair, the one holding his hand moving to pull him into a hug.

 _Ah, it’s raining,_ he thinks as he clutches at the man hugging him, at this inexplicable feeling of _safety_ when he hasn’t associated touch with care and comfort for so long. 

The man hushes him, holds him, and does not say a word. His head is quiet.


End file.
